It's Football Time!
Just wanted to share my fun mosaic journey on making this Skeewbacker Patterned Sports wall hanging for my son-in-law. He is a huge fan of the Georgia Bulldogs so when his birthday came around I thought, "why not?"
I started with a Skeewbacker in the Sports collection that has a pattern printed on it for the Bulldogs.
I used the inspiration image to create my mosaic. It was very helpful and I modified the pattern a bit to match the inspiration image.
First thing I did was, I flipped the board over and glued black tiles to the sides for a border around the entire backer. I used weld bond for this entire project since it will be hanging indoors.
Next I put in my t-nuts in the holes so it can be hung on the wall. I then printed out the inspiration image and used white stained glass pieces to create the bulldog face. I like the bigger pieces as they really help shape the face. This took awhile, had to grind each piece for good fit! I also wanted to leave some bigger space for black grout to better define his features.
For the next step, I added top black border tiles around the edge.
After the face, I was ready to tackle the white circle around the face and white letters. I chose Kismet Tiles in 12mm size. For all the black, I used Kismet Tiles in 8mm sizes. Worked perfect! This image shows the G with a thicker body - I didn't like it that way so I pulled off the extra surrounding tiles and left the G as a thinner letter. Looked better! Then filled in with black tiles and red stained glass pieces for around the spikes!
I made some good progress on the lettering. Lots of cutting in but am pleased so far.
Here you can see I have outlined the white letters in the 8mm Kismet black tiles.
Here I used red glass tiles and cut them in triangles and filled in all the background.
And finally, I used black grout for entire piece. It is cleaned and I will present to my SIL on his birthday - he better like it!! I recommend trying the Sports patterned Skeewbackers as they made this so much easier!
Mosaic by Lou Ann Weeks
Thank you for continuing to inspire me with your beautiful mosaics…. The mosaics I have done (created) since my husband & I accidentally wondered into a “junky” thrift store has been the beginng of my love of mosaics as well as other forms of art. The man who worked there was doing a buste of a woman in black & white which Iimmediately caught my attention since I’m drawn to those colors. As we wondered around the store we saw this incredible life size mannequin completely done in mosaics! It was stunnig to say the least. The man said “she” had traveled all over the world in various shows, faiirs etc. How I wish I had gotten more information from the artist or a photo. We left that store & went directly to Home Depot to buy some of the tools to get started doing mosaics🤗 Sadly a few months later we went back to the thrift store, it was no longer there☹️. We do have a beautiful abstract print that we bought that day & with a change of the frame color it has been hanging in our dining room for 15 yrs. As my interest in mosaics started I found your website. Through the years I have done MANY house numbers, worked with tiles, glass, ceramic etc. I’ve been inspired to try other art forms of creating art such as acrylic pour painting, which left me with beautiful “skins” that I have reperposed into some amazing plane old vases into beautiful pieces of art and more resently watercolors. Your information how to get started doing mosaics AND all aspects beginng to final finish has continued to inspire me in doing mosaics! I am computer challenged LOL, & will try to send you pics of some of my work….. Thank you sincerely for sharing your knowledge & keeping me inspired🤗 Mary Ann Weisong